Dark Echoes - Part 12

The weapons lock alarm screamed through the bridge as Jones snapped, “INCOMING FROM FOUR O’CLOCK-HIGH! BRACE FOR IMPACT!” Jones shouted feeling like her heart was going to burst out of her chest. The bridge crew suddenly held onto their stations.

“EMERGENCY EVASIVE!” Smith commanded. “HARD TO PORT!”

“’HARD TO PORT’, AYE!” Wilson snapped to respond to the order. In what seemed like a split section, a blinding white violent explosion filled the viewscreen, sharply lighting up the bridge. The hull shuddered so sharply the ship rocked suddenly and rolled to port, throwing the crew to the floor as a backpack tossed flagrantly aside like a car in a violent tornado. Wilson reached for his console and used the thrusters to adjust the ship’s relative position.

The rest of the crew gradually managed to climb back up to their seats and immediately began searching for new information on their computers. Aaen leaned into his seat, breathing heavily, noting the flickering computer screens, “Damage report!”

Another blinding flash followed by a sudden, violent rocking motion.

“Thrusters ahead–FULL!” Aaen commanded.

Smith felt his patience being tested, “WHERE are they shooting from?” He sharply asked Jones directly.

Jones was frantically scanning for an answer, executing multiple scans simultaneously on every frequency in the book—slamming her fists into her desk sharply, gritting her teeth and shouting, “DANG IT! THEY’RE NOT SHOWING UP ON SENSORS—!” Jones noted as the last sonar burst spread in every direction, there was a small green flicker at four o’clock, high, and it appeared to be ‘drifting’ towards three o’clock almost directly parallel to their heading, before fading away. She did another scan, doubling the sensor sensitivity—nothing. DANG IT! The red alert continued flooding the bridge.

Connors noted a slight reduction in the available power in the ship’s main power grid; the overhead lights were flickering slightly and erratically.

“Connors?” Smith asked directly.

“Reading a slight power drain from the main power grid. Attempting to localize the source!”

“Very well!” Smith acknowledged.

“What-the-heck?” Jorgensen suddenly shouted curiously glaring at his screen.

Smith noted Jones’ was frantically manipulating her computer’s controls. He braced against another sharp shudder as he asked, “Whaddya got?”

This time, Jones wide-eyed leaned close to her screen, traced her finger intently across her screen in multiple directions, paused, then grinned back, bracing against another sharp, violent shudder as Wilson executed another series of sharp evasive maneuvers.

Aaen looked behind him to find out why Smith was so quick around the corner, seeing the looks on Smith and Jones’ faces.

Jones pointed to her screen, “Sandberg, enter these targeting coordinates,”

“What did you find?” Aaen asked with a steely look. For the first time since he could remember, he felt sweat building on his forehead.

 The crew braced for another sharp shudder; this one nearly threw them across the bridge like they were horizontally bungee jumping. Wilson executed another series of sharp evasive maneuvers.

“I don’t know how much longer we can keep doing this, Captain! I’m reading a lot of subspace navigational hazards forming all over the place like mines!” there was anger and frustration in his voice. He was struggling to keep them out of the blast zone of the explosions but was too focused on his work to openly admit the fact. The rest of the bridge crew could hear his struggle in his voice.

Then there was relative calm. Aaen and Smith looked around—Odyssey’s instrumentation became quiet. The entire crew felt overwhelmingly puzzled, and curious about what had just happened.

“Did they stop shooting?” Aaen asked. Jones immediately looked at her screen, quickly examining it thoroughly, then turned around and turned her head.

“I’m not detecting any other incoming fire,”

“And you won’t. Not for the moment, at least,” Connors replied. “I finished adjusting the stealth field frequency. I had to take the new frequency into the Hilohertz range, and I had to make a few significant adjustments to the field’s geometry. Now that’s all finished, we should be in the dark to their sensors, and visually, at least for now,” the crew cheered, and there were a few breaths of relief. We could probably fly within a foot of their hull and they wouldn’t know it, she thought with a grin.

“Excellent work!” Aaen said to Connors. The notion of recommending a crew member or promotion crossed his mind for the third time today. He was still working on catching his breath.

“They might just be reloading!—” Sandberg interjected sharply.

“What did you find?” Smith asked Jones steely.

Jones pointed at her screen and grinned, “I think I figured out how to find them,” 

*****

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